The Social Network

You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies

This story of the genesis of Facebook isn't itself SF, but it is more evidence that we now live in an SFnal world. (Caveat: I myself do not have a Facebook account. I believe there may be a couple of other people on the planet who don't, either.) It's not clear how much is real, and how much is dramatised fiction , but it feels as if it could be real, which is what's important. One thing the film does emphasise is that Zuckerberg wasn't in it for the money, but for the product.

The screenplay, set around two law suits of people suing Mark Zuckerberg, is chock full of that same wonderful dense snappy dialogue familiar from Aaron Sorkin's other masterpiece, The West Wing . There's lots of little in jokes that are fun if you are a computer geek (and it's nice to hear technical dialogue that isn't techno babble ). And there's a real feel of history being made. It is a delight to watch.

Rating: 2

[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 31 December 2011